the things we write in ciphers
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Chrom is a heroic figure cut in beautiful blue and he'll sacrifice himself for them if he has no choice but in the end, it's Robin who pulls them together and directs them and him who dies. Cyber Sleuth AU.
1. Chapter 1

_Warnings: Cursing, child abuse, violence_

* * *

zero

He's ten and amnesiac. He's ten and he does errands in EDEN.

He's ten and supposedly an orphan.

The Ylisse family takes care of this branch. You would think mistakes would not be repeated in this branch but honestly, the mistakes here are much worse at times.

LordKnightmon isn't here and UlforceV-dramon is but that's a part of the story for much, much later.

Instead, Robin is eleven now and has no parents but a caretaker who presses bruises into his arms with a little push and derides him. The man behind him causes more pain.

Robin learns not to cry as soon as possible because he likes living and living without pain is even better. And the tears make the people give up for whatever reason. He follows it as much as he can. The sooner they give up, the quicker he can do something else.

Eventually, he finds his revenge in the computer systems they hate and the chatrooms where he can be himself and not the weird boy with curved scars on his skin like he is everywhere else.

(He has a reunion there when he's sixteen, a reunion that is years in the making and like the others, he doesn't know but he doesn't need to because these are his friends.)

* * *

He has dreams of a blue boy. Dreams of a blue haired boy with a weird tattoo and a bright smile. He doesn't think he'll see him again but he does.

In EDEN.

It's not Kowloon, but it is EDEN and the world connects all over.

His sister comes along and they gently tease and provoke each other and they cause a lump to form in his throat for a few seconds and it hurts it hurts it hurts-

But it doesn't only hurt, it feels good for him to look at and smile at. So he does, under the safety and comfort of the hood he can pull up and hide behind.

Until they notice him of course.

(They aren't carbon copies of the other chosen children who are doing some real saving but that's fine this is the one in many millions world where things still happen and mistakes are still made so don't worry, Aiba, don't worry this world is _different_ -)

They see him sitting on the ground and the boy laughs and it's different and shiny in a sense.

Gods, he's in love.

It's not the first time. The first time was a girl named Olivia who was as shy as he was and they kissed in net cafe chairs and stole moments underneath the safe bleachers of soccer practice. She had convinced him into volleyball like he had convinced her back into the drama club-

He misses her like an ache in his heart, he wishes he had told her to come. He wishes and she's not here and the person is offering a hand to him and when he does, it feels warm (which is weird this whole world is data he's studied it there should be no warmth) and his hood falls like a romance novel's timing.

"You're okay!" the sister chirps.

"This is a data world," her brother reminds her. "If he wasn't, he'd log out."

"Well yeah but viruses are weird!"

"You're fourteen you shouldn't know anything about this."

"How do you think we've escaped Frederick all the time?"

They're bickering again and his heart aches so much for this and he doesn't know why. Then the young man turns to him and they're still holding hands, by the gods-

 _God, sings a woman in his heart. You're looking for god in the wrong place but you've found fate without me._

He doesn't pull away, he wants to but he doesn't do it until the other does it. And his cheeks are a nice pink and Lissa chirps out their names and everything is out of order but it's fine. It's all fine.

It's going to be great when Robin can talk and not stutter like an idiot.

His Digimon helps. Shoutmon is a bit of an asshole though.

* * *

He's here on an errand, his Digimon. He's here because a friend said, hey, help out some loose ends and tie them up so here he is.

And they see why, they know why, they feel why in their digital insides when those tentacle monsters show up.

Those tiny monsters it's trying to eat get smashed into the ground by a fireball and Shoutmon leaps after it with a roar and his golden scarf flowing in the wind.

There's something Robin wants to say about it but he's too busy shoving Chrom and his sister forward, his small weak hands finding strength somewhere inside him and then there is nothing but pain from his ankle all the way up and it needs to stop and it doesn't, it doesn't-

There's a giggle in the back of his brain and it feels more real than it should.

 _A woman with purple hair and a woman with green hair sigh in unison for different reasons. Then they share a laugh and get back to work._

Robin wakes up with no face but it's not the strangest thing that he's ever dealt with. He thinks. He hopes.

And his helper is a kindly woman who claims to be Chrom's sister and Chrom hugs him like they've known each other for years.

"We'll fix this," he says, with Lissa at his heels. "We'll save you. I owe you a favor."

Robin smiles through pink cheeks and regaining his eyes and quite honestly wants to kick himself.

* * *

Shoutmon is smart yeah, but he's smart in ways that matter, that cause bleeding and death and for people to be saved. He's not smart in how to keep them alive but Robin is, has to be really, to survive the disapproval of who know him.

"You make me think of my general," is all Shoutmon says when he points this out and though the words hurt his heart for some reason, he doesn't quite mind. "You don't think you matter so much either."

Obviously, Robin wants to say but he does not say it. If he mattered, he would have been saved too and he wasn't so he isn't. And if he mattered he could sleep without it hurting, he could not be screamed at for being at the hospital and unconscious.

Emmeryn gives him a bed in their spacious apartment.

When she's the only one there, he cries, and she lets him.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_ **Please leave me alone this ship is killing me...

Challenges: MiniFic Masterclass (DFC C) Crossover 2 Small MC, Diversity Writing GG 44, crossover boot camp - owe, Interseason boot camp - bizarre, gameverse boot camp - cluttered


	2. Chapter 2

_Warnings: breaking and entering, violence, child abuse, child abandonment._

* * *

two

Sometimes in the dark, Robin thinks of his mother. He wonders about all sorts of things, what her favorite color was, if she liked pizza without peppers like he did, if she climbed trees like a monkey or broke every computer she touched. He just had so many questions.

He wondered where she was now since it wasn't saving him.

What country was she going to and researching? Did she know his entire body ached some mornings when he breathed too hard?

Probably not. If Father and his fellows didn't care, it was likely she didn't either.

Really, he should be used to it by now.

* * *

Chrom is not a detective. Chrom is a bodyguard and a justice heaving wild animal so the second he has a Guilmon at his side, the boy is _off_. Robin would like it more if he and Shoutmon didn't have to keep up with the guy. On the upside, it gives him an opportunity to scan like you wouldn't believe, to find more Digimon, more friends, more people that care about him compared to say, his adoptive family.

He always wonders what happened to his mother but asking never works out so why do something that lacking in self-preservation?

Being a detective's assistant at least brought in pay, so his father didn't complain any longer. He probably wants to, wants to shake Robin and remind him of his place but Emmeryn refuses to let him leave her and go home. Apparently, the crying fest, as uncomfortable as it was, did its job.

Besides, Chrom is here more to see him, which she considered a boon. She claims he has too much time with his hacker equivalent of a street gang.

"Emm, it's not a gang," he tries to tell her, only for her to laugh and wink at Robin. Robin only blinks and smiles, unknowing, uncertain.

"Well, what else do you call a bunch of kids loitering around and hacking for fun?"

"A team," Chrom says, crossing his arms. This argument happens at least once a week and it never fails to leave Lissa in stitches for whatever reason.

Robin didn't ask about their parents. It wouldn't be fair to even try. They have done so much for him, so much more than really, he deserves. Secrets are the least of what he can not pry into.

Instead, he gets folded into a group of people full of noise. Vaike has an ax in his avatar and Miriel examines him with a Tentomon and Ricken trails behind her, peppering questions behind her skirt and peering up at him like he's the reason that Ricken himself is so short.

Shoutmon rolls his eyes and laughs, clearly at ease. One of them has to be.

"We're all over this EDEN sector," Chrom tells him as he pulls a device from his pocket. "If anyone can find what happened to you, it's us!"

Robin isn't sure that he's all that comforted, especially with the presence of that burly police officer Frederick, but he goes along with it in the end. It earns him some cash after all.

* * *

A girl intrudes on them and the girl's name is Say'ri and she is very quiet and very strange. That said, she looks at them all like they could hold the world in their hands.

"Something is up with my father's EDEN account," she says and it's all a lie but she looks terrified down to her bones all the same, no matter how twisted and calm she speaks.

Robin sympathizes. Tiki finds it adorable.

"If she was honest, she'd have a lot fewer problems," she tells him. He raises an eyebrow at her and gets another laugh in return.

As if it's so easy.

"I think she likes me," he mumbles. Emmeryn hears him, and she laughs behind her hand.

Chrom frowns from his orange. "Who does?"

"Someone on my chat," Robin lies without hesitation.

"Hm."

That's the end of it, at least as far as Robin is concerned.

* * *

Lissa somehow gets saddled with a giant cat monster. She says it's a lion cub and while they kind of believe her, it's much more entertaining to call Liollmon a giant cat monster.

Chrom thinks so anyway. Chrom also now has a large scratch down his thigh that Guilmon is snarling about.

It's adorable.

"Zealous," Emmeryn says, tracking the Shepherds running through the city internet. Robin is at their heels, not very good at track and field and they're so close, too close to-

 _Bam._

A firewall.

Robin can't help the sigh that leaves his mouth. "Shoutmon?"

"Hah! Looks like fun!" He, of course, rams into it, weapon in hand. He leaves a singular crack for his trouble.

"I hate firewalls," Sully mutters, reading her own Digimon and stepping beside him. "Ready to keep the trashlord from frying his last brain cells?"

Chrom mutters a few unsavory words. Robin smiles. "Sounds like a plan."

This tends to happen a lot, in retrospect.

* * *

Robin wakes up to Chrom's fist close to his father's face. He blinks. Shoutmon is saying something, Robin can't tell what it is, because it's muffled by the Digivice. Either way, Chrom has his other fist poised to swing and something was wrong-

"You broke into my office." Emmeryn's voice is the softest stone he's ever heard. "You could have just knocked if you wanted to see my assistant."

His father raises an eyebrow. He wouldn't answer his phone."

"You haven't paid for the minutes," Robin offers without sitting up.

Nostrils flare. Eyes narrow. "A few weeks apart and you're getting mouthy, I see."

"It's fine when Aversa does it." He doesn't mean to say it but he does mean it when he says it because Aversa is the golden girl because she's still stuck thinking Father can love anyone that isn't his-

Ow. Throb, head pain. Throb.

"I believe, regardless." Emmeryn can make three syllables sound like the King's English he is so _jealous._ "You have still broken in and you will be hearing from my lawyer and my personal guard."

Robin swears he sees Frederick the Wary smile wide enough to crack the man's jaw.

He doesn't mean to do it, but once Validar is taken away from him again, Robin cries like a small child.

Chrom's idea of comfort is to wrap him up in a hug and curl up on the bed-couch. It's the most cramped comfort that he can remember.


End file.
